Out on the Edge
by Batsutousai
Summary: 'If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, then it was never meant to be.' ('03 Verse)


**Title:** _Out on the Edge_  
 **Fandom:** _Fullmetal Alchemist '03_  
 **Author:** Batsutousai  
 **Rating:** Teen  
 **Pairings:** Edward Elric/original Greed  
 **Warnings:** Loneliness, minor violence  
 **Summary:** _'If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, then it was never meant to be.'_

 **Disclaim Her:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

 **A/N:** For FMA Rarepair Week on tumblr. Today's prompts included _Seasons_ and _"I don't know what I'm doing anymore. What's even the point?"_

For Greedy, since I know they love this ship. (And because I keep dragging my feet on making Roy old enough, already. XP)

It's been a while since I rewatched any of '03, let alone this opening scene, and I won't have access to my DVDs or internet fast enough to support streaming until Tuesday, so apologies in advance if it's off at all?

You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, tumblr, or LiveJournal.

-0-  
-0-

He hadn't needed a guide to realise that Dante wanted him dead. Tying up loose ends, destroying any possibility of danger dodging her steps in her new body. (A young, beautiful thing, desperate to serve; exactly Dante's type. Pity it had also been the man Greed had been in life's type, because then he might not be in this mess.)

Dante's miscalculation, it turned out, was in leaving the dead to the little boy with gold eyes.

Fullmetal, who had only taken one glancing blow not healing to cotton on to something being wrong. Fullmetal, who had some weird sort of ideas about not killing, who had defended against Greed's return attacks with narrowed eyes, until he was gasping for breath in the middle of the accursed array, weak from the nearness of his bones and the remaining alchemic charge.

"You have people to protect, still, don't you?" Fullmetal had asked, breathing a little harder than usual, but nowhere near so bad as Greed. "You've got people who need you there, not fighting against me, right?"

Greed stared at the kid in disbelief. "What's this? Aren't you here to avenge Dante?" He waved toward the empty husk discarded to one side.

Fullmetal's refused to look, a tightness to his expression. Even to his voice when he said, "I am not a killer. Not for revenge. Not for _anything_."

To Greed, it sounded almost like the kid was trying to convince himself more than Greed, and he wondered about that, distantly, even as he straightened and deadpanned, "Then why are you here?"

"Where's my brother?" Fullmetal demanded, and there was such _rage_ in his eyes. Like, if Greed gave the wrong answer, maybe Fullmetal would kill him after all.

"I let him free," Greed admitted. "He's got one of my people with him, but that's as much to keep her from coming after me, as anything."

Fullmetal's eyes narrowed, darted down to the array at their feet, then back to Greed. "What's this thing for?"

Greed–

Hesitated.

And then he decided, _'Why the hell not?'_ and told the kid about how to kill a homunculus. Because that shit Envy and the lovely Lust were still out there, still causing nothing but trouble, and Greed was always happy to ruin their days.

Fullmetal relaxed as he talked, pain and brilliance making war in his eyes. And, once Greed had finished, he nodded and said, "Thanks," then turned to leave.

"That's it?" Greed couldn't quite stop from asking.

"Don't kidnap my brother again," Fullmetal called back, and then he was gone from the room.

Greed didn't wait to see if he'd change his mind, just grit his teeth and caught up the sack of his bones, then went out to find Martel.

When he finally found her, sitting alone in a tree, her eyes lit up and she jumped down next to him. For one moment, Greed thought she might hug him, and he held up the sack to save her from the decision. "Crush these or burn them to ash, I don't care, just destroy them as much as possible, then bury them deep."

She took the sack in hands that shook. "You got it, Greed," she agreed quietly.

And _then_ she hugged him, and Greed hugged her back as long as he could stand to be so close to his bones, then ushered her away.

Now he just needed to figure out where to go next.

-0-

Outcasts were never hard to find, especially when you promised to welcome everyone equally. Martel stood at his right, running errands he couldn't trust to anyone else, until the day she didn't come back.

He didn't send anyone to search, decided he'd rather not know if she'd left by choice, or been killed because he hadn't kept her safe at his side.

He found a new right hand to trust, and then a left hand. And his empire was small, but it was his, and he told himself it was enough – would have to be; he didn't need Dante and her pets coming after him and massacring his people again – and yet...

Some part of him felt like something was missing.

-0-

He didn't get news of Fullmetal's death until almost two years after the fact. It came from that desperate little boy, Wrath, while he snacked on the small stock of red stones Greed had managed to unbury in one of Dante's old haunts. The stones were traded for updates, and it turned out they were worth it, in some ways, because now he knew exactly how few enemies he had.

And yet...

A tiny part of him grieved.

-0-

In winter, the part of him that grieved seemed to turn black with rot, and that rot spread throughout him, souring everything. He tried to combat it by doing everything _more_ – more food, more drinking, more sex, even eating some of his precious few remaining stones – but nothing helped.

He found himself lying on the roof of his ramshackle building one evening, staring up at the stars twinkling above him. "I don't know what I'm doing any more," he told the sky.

"Stargazing," Roxy, his left hand, said in that bland, unimpressed tone that she seemed to use for every response, even when something had clearly surprised her. Greed loved her, a little bit, for that. (He also loved her because she was willing to let him watch when she had sex with her girlfriend; even if she wouldn't have sex with him, at least he still had a good time around her.)

"Having an existential crisis?" Greggory, his right hand offered from where he had his crossbow trained on the streets below them. Probably watching that house two down the way, again; he seemed to think they were plotting something. But, then again, paranoia probably should have been his middle name, so Greed took his suspicions with a handful of salt and trusted he'd spot any other threats in advance, since he was already keeping such a determined lookout.

Greed grunted, closing his eyes. There was nothing but darkness behind his eyelids, teeming with rot he still didn't know the cause of, and it irritated him as much as it left him feeling...

Listless.

Hollow.

 _Lonely_.

"I need an orgy," he declared, pushing himself up, and Greggory snorted and Roxy turned a flat look on him, but they still both showed up when he ordered everyone into the largest room of their complex and had them strip.

It didn't help.

Once everyone else had been exhausted, Greed found himself pulling out the miniature handful of red stones, and he asked them, "What's even the point?"

Perhaps immortality wasn't all it was chalked up to be, even when he wasn't confined.

-0-

Spring and summer were better, the sun burning away most of the rot. But that central core of it wasn't so easily dispersed, even if it _was_ manageable.

Greed had fun again, as much as he could – more than he probably _should_ – and tried not to dread the winter.

-0-

It was easy to watch the stars during the long nights, where no one stopped to ask him well-meaning questions about his state of mind. Greggory and Roxy were always there, keeping their silent vigil until they fell asleep and he had to carry them inside before they froze in the cold. And that was...okay. Acceptable.

He still felt lonely.

It was one such night – just like the others leading up to it, the chill of midwinter already having grabbed a firm hold of everything, especially his immortal bones – when Greggory stiffened at his post by the wall, then said, "Got a midnight visitor, looks like, boss."

"The door guards'll turn them away until the morning," Greed murmured, not bothering to open his eyes.

And then a voice that had deepened since the last time he'd heard it, yet was still familiar, called out, "Greed!"

"Bo–" Greggory got out before Greed made it to the edge of the roof, staring down at where Fullmetal stood in front of his building, almost certainly glaring at the door guards blocking him entrance. His hair was different, and his coat looked brown, in the circle cast by the lights on either side of the door, but Greed would recognise that voice _anywhere_.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Greed caught himself shouting down.

Fullmetal's head jerked up, and gold eyes caught on his, weirdly clear even with the distance, older and wiser and still so, _so_ brilliant. "I could say the same to you!" he called back without pause, a sharp grin splitting his face.

That little knot of rot started unravelling, revealing something new. Something...fresh, new. _Warm_.

Greed jumped over the edge of the roof, dodging Greggory's desperate grab to stop him, and managed to encase all but his head in his shield before he landed, the ground cracking and kicking up snow power as he landed.

Fullmetal raised an eyebrow at him, clearly unimpressed. "I'm not fixing that," he said, pointing at the broken ground at Greed's feet.

Greed flashed a grin that came weirdly naturally, given the season. "Sure? I've got room for an alchemist, if you're looking for less-than-gainful employment."

Fullmetal let out a laugh that sounded a little startled, and his eyes sparkled gold in the light behind Greed, looking so much like the piles of coins in his vault. "Sorry, gotta be able to send money home, support my brother a bit."

Greed should have expected that; he knew Alphonse was the most important thing in Fullmetal's world. "We might be able to come to an arrangement," he offered. Tried to tell himself that he was just interested in the chance to have claim on an alchemist who was State Alchemist level, and not just because of _which_ alchemist it was.

Fullmetal tilted his head to one side. "What's this? Greed the Avaricious is offering to _share_? Have I jumped into yet _another_ alternate world?"

Alternate world? That...would explain why everyone thought he was dead.

" _Boss_ ," Greggory called, clearly going for chastising, ever though he already knew Greed did what he wanted.

"Really shouldn't go jumping off the top of buildings," Fullmetal offered, his tone _almost_ helpful, but his eyes bright with amusement. "It's not good for the very mortal hearts of your people. Or the poor ground."

Greed flashed him a sharp smile at that.

"And who are _you_?" Greggory demanded as he stepped up next to Greed's side, sounding every inch his most paranoid.

Fullmetal gave a careless roll of his shoulders, even as his feet shifted, talking a better stance for if things turned into a fight. "Name's Ed," he said with a smile that was trying to look harmless; Greed was a little impressed with how good he was. "Knew Greed a few years back, last time I was in Amestris. Happened to hear he might be out here from some of my military contacts."

Greed managed about half a sigh before Greggory roared, yanking the axe off his back and swinging it at Fullmetal's head; the military just happened to be what he was paranoid about.

Fullmetal easily ducked the swing, dancing quickly back, out of range, and holding up his hands in front of him. "Not looking for a fight, friend."

 _That_ had changed.

"I'm not friend of the military's!" Greggory roared, far too loud for the late hour, and he ran forward, swinging at Fullmetal again.

Lights flickered into being in the buildings around them, and Greed sighed again, starting to get a bit annoyed with Greggory's reaction; it had served him early on, certainly, and during the rare raid of whichever area they were settled in, but it had been almost a year since the last raid, and since it seemed the military had an idea where they were and weren't storming out to harass them...

"You're pissing off the neighbours," he said, allowing his irritation to seep into his voice.

Greggory didn't react, but Fullmetal cast him a quick glance – checking to see if he intended to intervene? – and then burst into action, clapping his hands together as he ducked another swing, and drawing his arm out into a wicked blade. He parried the next swing with enough force to sent Greggory stumbling back a step, then stepped into the opening in Greggory's guard, twisting his blade and slamming the flat of it against the side of Greggory's head.

Greggory dropped without a sound.

Fullmetal clapped again and changed his arm back to basic automail, casting it a strange, fond little smile as he flexed his fingers.

Greed stepped forward, commenting, "Still not killing, I see."

Fullmetal's expression darkened and he ducked his head down, hiding it. "I've done enough killing for one life, thanks," he said quietly.

There was a story there, but Greed had spent enough time, by then, trudging along with his own rot to recognise it in others, and he discovered he didn't want to poke at Fullmetal's rot until the boy – _man_ , really, although everyone was a little bit a child, compared to him – was willing to let him. Instead, he commented, "You've just knocked out my right hand man."

The look Fullmetal shot him wasn't _quite_ to the level of unimpressed as Roxy's usual, but it was no less impressive. "You're seriously going to call someone that weak and stupid your _right hand man_?" he demanded, tone just a little bit incredulous.

Greed flashed him a smile that was hopefully as much violence as it was temptation – his face was the determined to form the latter, for some reason – and he stepped into Fullmetal's reach, saying, "Well, the best candidate for the job was supposedly dead."

Fullmetal blinked, and then his eyes went wide, a dusting of red on his cheeks just barely visible as lights in the other buildings started to go back out. " _Me_?" he demanded. And his voice didn't _actually_ crack, but Greed imagined it had been a near thing.

Greed's hand reached up and cupped Fullmetal's chin, tilting it up a bit so they were still locking eyes, even as he stepped into his personal space, so close he thought he could feel the heat of him, burning away the remains of the rot holding fast just under his skin. "Didn't you realise," he murmured, realising, as he did so, that it was true, "that you became mine the moment you let me live?"

Fullmetal sucked in a desperate breath, and he used it to ask, "Then why did you let me go?"

Greed flashed him a sharp smile. "I know how to recognise when I won't be able to keep something, even if it _is_ mine."

Fullmetal's eyes narrowed and he hissed, "And what makes you think you can keep me _now_?"

Greed leant in and whispered, "You came back," against Fullmetal's lips, before leaning down the rest of the way to kiss him.

Fullmetal was stiff for a moment, just long enough that Greed _almost_ thought he'd misjudged, and then he pulled back just enough to gasp in a breath, reaching up to grab at the back of Greed's head, yank him back down to meet for a rough kiss that was nothing but the rough press of desperation, of a man _starved_.

No, Greed hadn't read him wrong at all. And if Fullmetal thought he would be leaving again, he was going to be sorely disappointed, because he was _Greed's_ now. Now, and forever.

.


End file.
